Lost in Translation

I have been doing some translation jobs from time to time. I've translated documents from german to tagalog, english to german and tagalog to german. I mean these are just simple documents, not over the top. I got this small job from my hubby, who is a real certified translator and interpreter. He's the one doing the tough stuffs, I'm just his backup *hehehe* He thinks that it's a good thing for me so that I could improve my german language knowledge and to make it even better. And he was right. It did really help me a lot.

One doesn't realize how much hard work there is in a translation job unless one had actually tried it. I, for one actually did it and I'm telling you it's no picnic. You think that understanding is ok, but putting them in words or in writing from one language to another is really hard. You have to put lots effort on how to make it very understandable and how to make it sound eloquent, in order to make your readers interested and not be bored.

My first translation gave me lots of headaches. It was so damn hard! But once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier *as if!* but I have to admit that sometimes I feel like I'm running out of vocabulary. My hubby says it's normal for a beginner *yabang! haha!* Once I translated a Remittance Center poster Ad from german to tagalog, (they said, they want to reach out to the Filipino people living here in germany...) It was really funny because writing the ad in pure tagalog made it sound like you're reading Christy Fermin's column, grabe ang lalim ng tagalog haha! but it was really fun. Right now I'm translating a contract for a Holiday Home in France. Every translation has to be proof read by my hubby and when it's all ok, then it's time to send it to the client. I hope everything goes well. I am really starting to enjoy this. Doing this work made me appreciate the people behind those subtitles that you see in the movies and the foreign books that you read.

Now I truly understand how my hubby really need those peace and quiet whenever he is working in his office. Hats off to all Translators and Interpreters!


Image: Perriced via Flickr